By Rezdy — 30 Sep 2014

With 97% of people now preferring to find business online, every modern tour operator understands the need for a website that converts visitors into customers – and does it well.

You may think that there’s no need to fix something that isn’t broken, but why settle for less when you’re ready for more? Many of your visitors may already be veering away from your website because they find it too difficult to get the information they need to make a booking with you.

Here are some website must-haves you need to convert more website visitors into paying customers.

1. Provide clear path to booking

Your website has many entry points. No matter where people are on your website, they should be able to easily learn of your tour or activity and book with you.

The path to booking goes something like this:

  1. The person is taken to your site from a referring site – be it social media or a review site like TripAdvisor.
  2. The person sees a “Tours” or “Packages” button. They click it.
  3. The person reads your product catalog list and selects the package they want by hitting the big bright “Book Now” button. They click that.
  4. The person decides to book! They fill out the booking form and lock it in.

So how can you make sure that this is a smooth process?

Use call to action buttons

These are your buttons which link to website pages. When your visitors land on your site, these buttons tell them what action to take, and what to expect once the button is clicked.

If you think about it, you can break down your website visitors into 3 segments:

  • Just browsing. Put information buttons like “Learn More About Our Night Time Dives” and “Contact Us”. The fact that they are even browsing tells you they’re interested in experiencing your tour or activity.
  • Interested. Link to information that makes them feel comfortable, like “See Customer Reviews”, “Photos”, and “FAQs”.
  • Keen. That “Book Now” button should always be prominent on every page.

Without these buttons, all areas of your site would not be linked together seamlessly.

Forms

Having forms on your website that cater to your customers’ needs is another way to be useful to them and make it easier for both of you.

How? You can add fields that help you segment your database and they don’t have to leave your website to get what they want.

You should have a booking form (of course) and an inquiry form.

Form length is important in improving booking conversion rates. Make it as easy to fill out as possible by limiting questions to ones deemed necessary.

2. Make use of conversion assists

There are little elements on your website that all contribute to making a person (especially a traveler) feel comfortable enough to book with you.

Things like TripAdvisor badges, local awards you have received, and testimonials, all help remove the barriers to booking with you.

You can also add social media widgets to your site:

Your website is the face of your business online, so it has to look professional!

3. Track conversions

Last but certainly not least, you should be using a third party analytics tool (for example, Google Analytics) to track your visit-to-customer conversion rate .How else will you be able to track and measure progress?

Without knowing what your conversion rate is, you won’t be able to know if a recent change you implemented has had any effect on your bottom line.

Your online booking software should provide some way for you to measure this. For example, Rezdy uses Apps that allow for integration with Google Analytics and conversion tracking.

To see how Rezdy works, request a demo or jump into a free trial.

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